Personal Blog of celebrated blogger and author of three books, Roma Gupta Sinha who has been felicitated with numerous awards and recognition for her candid thought-provoking writings including the coveted 'Woman of the Year 2015' and 'Planet Pride's Award 2018'

Warm Greetings My Lovely Readers, no points for guessing, this was a heartfelt note of promise to my little "buddy"....yes you heard it right, that's how I address my 6 year old little sonny....In Words and in deeds, I have nurtured him to be my best buddy...It is no book or research that my Style of bringing up my tiny Munchkin got direction-ed to be one of " Buddy Parenting" Style but it was on account of my experiences early on in life....with both of my parents being fantastic yet strongly opinionated human beings with poles apart mindsets and perspectives of life...This made me and my little brother grow up amidst not very friendly unending arguments and we were left craving to get a buddy in our parents or atleast the lovely family together times(though our parents showered oodles of love on us individually for which I shall forever remain indebted to them)...choice was thus left on me, if I really wanted to crib on the multiple thorns in a few roses in our lives or really wanted to take the beautiful roses in the thorns as the ray of hope...I chose the latter and shielded my brother as much as I can from the rough times and tried to fill them with smile...I also kept reiterating to myself,for umpteen number of years, that come what may, I shall never let the same fate befell on my tiny-tot....I thus candidly endeavor always, that my tiny bud, my sonny, is given proper nourishment of abundant love, smiles and freedom to bloom into a beautiful flower!

Anmol "Khushi Ke Pal"

And I am Glad that my hubby and the most adorable daddy darling, to my little encyclopedia, too shares this thought process and thus our days begin with smiles and end in laughter and that is how we intend to make the life of our little peanut a bed of roses...Coming back to his family, no matter how harsh the day has been,he must be able to share his heart out to us without a hitch, discuss his feelings and feel lighter.....and eventually forget it and go to sleep peacefully!

For us as parents, to nurture our little wonder this way, fills us with immense relief and great pride....Not only these moments , we value every moment spent with our little friend and why not, after all being with him is always so liberating undoubtedly...We wish to drown ourselves forever in his candid talks and forget all our worries no matter how gruesome they are, when we are with him...He is the emotional anchor of all our feelings and the infinite "Khushi Ke Pal"spend with him are indeed the most wonderful, precious and beautiful moments of our lives! Words fail us to express our Gratitude to Almighty for sending our little Angel into our lives ..

We are best buddies and love to giggle together

This is thus my straight from the heart request to all the lovely mommies and daddies round the globe, right on the onset of this post, through this wonderful platform of "Khuljaaye Bachpan by Kellogg's"to let their little angels enjoy their childhood to their best by setting them free to do whatever they wish to.....to enable them to unlock the beauty of their curious, creative and brilliant brains. Because by being aggressive or authoritative parents to them, as I fully understand by doing so, they wish to set in certain degree of discipline in their lives, they are restricting the freedom of their kids' minds, to explore the world and learn hands on through personal experience............

For me , being a Mother is like the Rediscovery of Womanhood...The advent of Motherhood instilled so many new emotions in me and the feelings of selfless love, warmth, responsibility and the promise to take care of my little one oozed out of me in abundance...I felt overwhelmed, while the tongue becomes speechless, it is the wet eyes, that did much of the talking at the first glance of the little life, who was within me a few minutes ago! Not only was he born that day, so was a mother in me...If the world was a surprise to him, so was the world as a mother to me...So we had to explore it together, hand in hand as buddies and that is where the foundation of the kind of relationship I have with my sunny boy was laid...Earnestly speaking, I don't set rules in Parenting but do bear some genuine KEYPOINTS, while rearing up my little Munchkin...Sharing with you below, some of our priceless #khushikepal, and how we ensure our little buddy's childhood is filled with openness, acceptance, fearlessness and Empowerment:1.We let our Tiny Birdie Free to Fly: Yes, we just let our little cocoon spread his soft wings and watch him peacefully ....we let his wings gain strength gradually.... to fly high up in the sky of life, tomorrow and grow up to be a colorful Butterfly.... ...his excitement and happiness elates our hearts to the core and his cute innocent questions on subjects such as the rain drops, tinkle our souls as we answer them gently one by one, to his heart's content....experiencing eternal priceless happiness!!

Look Mamma, I am flying High!

2.We Weave Together as many "Khushi Ke Pal" as possible: We have taught our little buddy to live by the principle that lets all the moments that have gone by or that come along, remain in our hearts like a beautiful song...we thus weave sweet memories everyday in the wonderful journey of life, capture them and preserve them...may it during the Bathey -Bathey Times, the Mushy Mushy Cuddle times, The King, Queen and their little Prince Story times(I create them everyday fusing together fun and values with real life situations) or Yummy Yummy Power-Packed Chocos Time (A favorite must-have for us each day) <3 <3, the atmosphere of our home sweet home is always like that shown in the lovely Kellogg's commercial embedded below:

These lovely little little "Khushi ke Anmol Pal" give us the strength to sail through the tougher times of life, with a smile <3

"Why not distribute health thru' a pack of Chocos to my friends on my Bday Mom"

3.Fun Way is the Best Way of learning in our lives: "We can lead a horse to water but not make him drink" but what if we play a game with the horsie that whoever reached the water first and drinks it wins..in this case we'll not even have to lead the horse to water and it would drink it too...The point that I wish to make is, adopting fun techniques to make our little ones learn, is both fun and inspiration to us Mommy-Baby Duo...For.e.g. To teach my tin-tot the Life Cycle of a Chick, rather than reading it out to him monotonously over and over again, I casually strike a conversation with him asking if he would like to become my cute little Chick? and that's it :) ...a definite yes and the onslaught of the questions about the chick, some candid discussions, some laughter and some dancing is what follows....Target achieved! Happy Mommy,happy Sonny!

Similarly, to aid my little munchkin understand about our tricolor, we switch on our fun mode again..we'll have tricolor balloons, dressings, sweets an all games of the day around it and eventually I find my over-excited encyclopedia digging out more facts about the tricolour on his Ipad (Phew!!)...only to leave me wondering if I overdid it!

It is by my own experience for years, I wanna tell you that what the children learn the play way, stays with them for longer as well we spend so much of quality time together, a win-win situation for a mom's heart!4.We Live Life Kingsize with our Peanut by your Side: Today the lifestyles have changed, with both of us working, it doubles our responsibility that we must make our child feel happy and secure and most importantly doesn't get carried away to misuse the freedom we have given him, in search of company....For this we always strike the most positive chords with him..taking holidays together frequently, sharing our hearts out to each other, taking our kiddo for a swim, having music jamming or shake-a-leg sessions together are some of the things always on our weekend list to get those priceless grins and smiles, that make our lives worthwhile <3

5.We Make Life a Celebration always: To add that extra dose of "Khushi ke Pals" to our lives, we (Lead by our little sonny) plan meticulously small celebrations at regular intervals....Holi, Diwali, Christmas, Birthdays and even Father's, Mother's and Grandparents day mark a celebration for us...Our whole extended family tries to unite this way...and have loads of fun while the little ones learn a lot about our traditions, culture and family values!

6.We add an ounce of freshness and the new to our lives :Children have a very small attention span and tend to get bored off easily, we thus keep our little buddy's zeal alive by regularly pitching in some prizes and Surprises for him like we presented him his very own fish- Cutie when he won a Gold Medal in school..This made us happy two ways-one we expressed our delight and appreciation on his achievement and second while taking care of a fish, it's food and cleanliness our boy will learn to take on responsibility <3 ...For him it was definitely a welcome change in his life as was evident from his smiles and the way he decorated it's surroundings :)

7.We learn and enrich from each other: The best thing about our buddy relationship is that no-one 's always right or wrong, we are extremely open to learn from each other and accept our mistakes and apologize when we commit one...We also love to learn from each other...I cite an example here, my sonny who goes to class 1, has German as a subject and since he knows mom doesn't know German, he takes great pride in teaching it to me everyday effectively....This not only makes him happy but it boosts his self-confidence multi-fold...For Me I act as a perfect student, listening patiently and enjoying the priceless "Khushi Ke Pal" in my heart! This strengthens our love-bond multi-fold as the relationship now becomes bi-directional <3

Hey!! Got really carried away...Motherhood is indeed the most priceless chapter of my life's diary friends and I deeply love and aspire to make it most memorable and worthy..... and give my little sonny, loads of precious smiles and a perfect grooming, by being his best buddy forever...which I am glad, too is a philosophy endorsed by my Favorite Brand Kellogg's through their "Khuljaaye Bachpan" Initiative!! While Chocos is an essential part of my picky kid's diet for a long time now , I am also extremely impressed by Kellogg's Chocos joyful TV commercials always, which have enriched me as a mother and added on to my kitty of having more and more fun moments for my little boy....Proud that our togetherness has borne adorable fruits, with our little rockstar emerging into a versatile independent boy(check out his different avatars in the collage below) who never shies away from taking on new challenges and excelling in them and is forever ready to embrace the tricky world in a positive way!!

Giving Freedom to our little ones to do everything they wish, is like giving wings to their Dreams

And as I conclude, this Straight From the Heart post, Can't stop the flow of the stream of emotions from my heart for my little buddy, my inspiration and my most priceless treasure :